Description

History

Buckingham was a repeater (an "auxiliary station" in AT&T terminology) linking Wyndmoor, PA and Martinsville, NJ
via TD-2 microwave radio. As of Feb. 7, 1984, FCC records show the station having six microwave channels in the 4 GHz band.

Buckingham was also licensed for the 451.325 MHz radio frequency used for AT&T system maintenance, under callsign WZA692.

The silo-like building indicates that Buckingham is one of AT&T's earliest commercial microwave stations.
According to A History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System: Transmission Technology, p. 301,
"Structural steel was scarce in the postwar era, and it was thought that there would be economies in a poured-concrete structure
built like a silo. Only a few of these were built before before it was clear that they were not economical."

The high-performance parabolic ("dish") antennas seen in the 1986 photos are not original. It's likely that Buckingham
began service with two pairs of delay-lens antennas.

In 1967, Buckingham was part of a route known as TVS [Television Section] 21, used occasionally to carry television programming
between Troy Hill, PA (near Pittsburgh) and Jackie Jones Mountain, NY (near West Haverstraw). In that year, the station was included
in a coast-to-coast transmission test intended to measure the performance of TD-2 radio systems for network TV service.
Excerpts from the report on that test can be found in the Documents section of this web site.

Present Function

Buckingham is no longer an AT&T microwave station, and all of the antennas for that service have been removed. The silo was sold
to American Tower Corporation, and now hosts antennas for a number of tenants, including cellular-telephone companies.